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Very often, songs about food do not signify the food itself but instead depict hidden connotations such as emotional turmoil, passion, happiness, delight and intimate longing. Sometimes, it isn’t easy to decipher the exact meaning of the artist’s intentions, or the song conjures a double-entendre.
Here’s our list of the best songs about food:
1. “My Boy Lollipop” – Millie Small
Millie sings this full-of-life song to the subject of her affection. It is unclear if they are in a relationship or she is simply in love with him as she says, “I love you but I don’t want you to know”, though at the same time, she says, “I’ll never let you go”. Foods described in this song are lollipops, candy, and sugar, all depicting sweetness.
Next: Top love songs for boyfriends
2. “Lollipop” – Lil Wayne
This visually detailed 2008 jingle won a Grammy Award for the Best Rap Song, among other awards. The song graphically describes shagging and drinking, a lifestyle many rappers live up to. It depicts Wayne’s manhood as the sweet lollipop; talk of self-confidence!
Next: Top bar songs ever made
3. “Red Red Wine” – UB40 (originally by Neil Diamond)
The 1983 reggae song portrays heartbreak and the use of red wine to numb the memory of a love lost. The verses are sung to the subject of love, whereas the chorus is sung to the wine itself, depicted as an oxymoron. The wine provides a feeling of a million dollars and sadness at the same time.
4. “Birthday Cake” – Rihanna
This 2011 R&B song talks of birthday cake in reference to Rihanna’s body. It is a sensual song and inappropriate to play during a birthday. It describes the action of getting down and dirty, depicting the sweetness as similar to that derived from eating an actual birthday cake.
Next read: Best songs with strong figurative language usage
5. “Cake By The Ocean” – DNCE
This 2015 funk song is also about getting together sexually, depicting that eating cake by the ocean is living on the wild side of life. The song invites the partner to go live dangerously and take risks. The cake is sweet, and he likens it to her sweetness of many different flavors that he needs every night.
Next: Best sexy songs ever made
6. “Sugar”—Maroon 5
This 2014 funk-pop disco beat song is about wedding crashing. It held a Top 10 position for a minimum of 20 weeks on the Hot 100 list. Maroon 5 crashed at least two real weddings. Sugar defines the sweetness of love. One of the best songs about food, this song depicts a suitor begging his lover never to go away as he is crushed without her, ideal for weddings, don’t you think?
Next: Greatest songs about signs and what they mean
7. “Pour Some Sugar On Me” – Def Leppard
This 1987 hard rock song attained 2nd position on the US Billboard Hot 100 months after its release. Like most other songs named after food, it signifies intimate relations. It is an invitation from one to another to come together for a night of fun.
8. “Peaches N Cream” – Snoop Dogg
This 2015 hip hop song depicts group intimate relations as there are several partners together at the same time. The meaning of the song denotes a good combination for the people involved as “Peaches and Cream” go together very well.
Recommended: Top songs about fruit
9. “Peaches”—The Presidents of the United States of America
This 1995 song talks of life in the country and accessibility to peaches from the farm. The entire song seems innocent and referring to actual peaches that grow on trees until you get to the last stanza, where the intimiate connotation checks in, with the peach being a woman’s private parts.
10. “Stir Fry” – Migos
This 2018 rap song refers to a stir fry as a combination of money, women, and friends, combining to form the better things in life.
Next: More great songs about money
11. “She Don’t Use Jelly” – The Flaming Lips
The 1993 song refers to butter, cheese, and tangerines, each one with its meaning. The jelly in reference could signify lubrication as the second stanza depicts intimacy at home.
12. “The Onion Song” – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
This 1969 California soul song is one of the few songs about food that has no sexual connotation. Instead, it talks of life’s tribulations that would make one cry, just like an onion would.
13. “Cherry Pie” – Warrant
The 1990 song resembles the sweetness of a cherry pie to a woman who ‘tastes so good, she could make a grown man cry.’ This refers to her body’s sweetness.
14. “Honey Pie” – The Beatles
This 1968 song is an innocent cry to a busy working-class girl who doesn’t spend enough time at home. The honey pie signifies her sweet nature.
For more, try out these easy Beatles songs on the guitar.
15. “Passionfruit” – Drake
This 2017 hip-hop song doesn’t talk about the actual fruit but indicates that the passion fruit represents passion and zeal.
16. “Bacon” – Nick Jonas and Ty Dolla $ign
This 2016 release refers to bacon and sugar. It gives off the connotation that the bacon in reference throughout the song is a part of the body.
17. “Sugar Mountain” – Neil Young
Several renditions have followed over the years of this 1977 tune. It mentions sugar and candy floss. It depicts sugar mountain as living on top of the world.
Recommended: Songs about candy
18. “Banana Pancakes” – Jack Johnson
The 2005 melody, unlike most songs about food, refers to banana pancakes as what they really are, suggesting he can make them for breakfast for the recipient of his love.
19. “Custard Pie” – Led Zeppelin
It is thought that “custard pie” is a code word for the female body, as is represented in this 1975 song.
20. “I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts” – Danny Kaye
This classical song draws the picture of him and his wife at a fair. She is at the showman’s stand encouraging people to ‘roll a bowl’ and get a chance to see the ‘coconuts.’ Next to her are four other females, in unison with her.
21. “The Ketchup Song” – Las Ketchup
Released in 2002, it became a worldwide success the same year. However, following its debut, the song became contentious due to conspiracy claims that the lyrics were cryptic references to evil worshipping.
22. “Egg Man” – Beastie Boys
The 1989 lyrical song was inspired by the Beasties’ penchant for hurling eggs at people, a common habit for them, particularly an event in Los Angeles at the Mondrian Hotel.
23. “Vegetables” – The Beach Boys
Written at a time when they were focusing on getting healthier, this is a 1967 song encouraging healthy eating habits. In the background, you can hear someone chewing celery.
Next: Best songs with water references
24. “A Cup Of Coffee, A Sandwich And You” – Gertrude Lawrence
The lyrics of this 1959 jazz song signify that a woman ought to take third place, with the first two positions already filled up by a hot beverage and a snack.
25. “My Bacon Roll” – Mark Knopfler
Inspired by an actual event at a café where a man demands his bacon roll from a waitress, in this 2018 song, the bacon roll is depicted as an adequate breakfast for a working man to have before he starts his day.
26. “Buttered Popcorn” – The Supremes
This 1962 rock and R&B song talks of buttered popcorn to denote pleasure that her man likes to have all day, every day.
27. “Biscuits” – Kacey Musgraves
This 2015 song symbolizes biscuits as minding your own business, just as you would eat your biscuits, without bothering the neighbors or wanting to know what they are up to.
28. “The Blacker The Berry” – Kendrick Lamar
This 2015 hip-hop song depicts people of color and the discrimination they go through. The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice is true for the actual fruit. This song depicts that, despite that, the black man is made to feel inferior based on society racial relations.
29. “Candy Shop” – 50 Cent
This 2003 hip-hop rap song won a Grammy Award for the Best Rap Song, among others. The candy shop in reference is the artists’ bedroom. He used sweet analogies to lead to the concept of closeness and intimacy eventually.
Next: The top songs about ice cream of all time (ever made)
30. “Mango Tree” – Zac Brown Band
This 2015 song depicts the mango tree as a haven, providing protection in the paradise of love that he and his lover are in, along the beach’s shores.
31. “Truffle Butter” – Nicki Minaj
This 2015 song featured Drake and Lil Wayne and won the Grammy Award for the Best Rap Performance. Truffle butter is slang for some things that won’t be mentioned in this article. This song made the slang expression famous.
32. “Bread And Water” – Vince Gill
This 2011 song is about a destitute man who suffers then gains grace. Vince sang it in tribute to his brother, who lived a similar life after a terrible car crash that made him comatose for many months. The bread and water depict that they can be sufficient to sustain a simple life. A very heartfelt song about family, indeed.
33. “Honey, Honey” – ABBA
This 1974 upbeat song refers to a lover who provides sweetness in the artists’ life, equivalent to the sweetness derived from honey.
34. “American Pie” – Don McLean
With several renditions of the song years later, this 1971 song depicts the end of the ideal American life. It is widely accepted to be about the political and cultural downfall of the United States back in the 1960s.
Next: Meaning behind the “American Pie” song lyrics
35. “Apples And Oranges” – Pink Floyd
The phrase likening apples to oranges refers to the obvious contrasts between objects often assumed to be incompatible. In this 1967 release, the phrase seems to be making reference to the protagonist and the lady in the supermarket who catches his eye, signifying how similar yet so different they are.
36. “Brown Sugar” – The Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger, the bands’ frontman, draws inspiration for this song from his ex-lover Marsha Hunt. She is the brown sugar in reference. Released in 1971, the song made it to the top of the American Hot 100 the same year.
37. “Mayonaise” – Smashing Pumpkins
Released in 1993, this rock song is nothing about mayonnaise but was randomly named so. It depicts the artist’s lost childhood as he was busy caring for his brother.
Next: Songs about pain, suffering and great hurt
38. “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” – Harry Chapin
This 1974 song was inspired by true events where a truck full of bananas in transit was involved in an accident in Pennsylvania in Scranton.
39. “Hot Dog” – Led Zeppelin
This 1979 release, though stated as a tribute to Texas, is likely about a woman who had the artist’s romantic interests. Incidentally, the occurrences led to the name hot dog derived from “Dachshund” because someone didn’t know how to spell that.
40. “Pea” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
The song signifies the bullying that the artist underwent while growing up due to his small body size, as tiny as a pea.
41. “Mother Popcorn” – James Brown
This 1969 instrumental song depicts the variations of popcorn and likens it to the variations between women.
42. “Biscuits ‘n’ Gravy” – Kelis
This 2014 song from the album Food forms the basis of several culinary-themed melodies by Kelis. When the singer was unable to get money from a label in 2010, she decided to pay producers using home-cooked meals that were prepared at her in-home studio.
43. “Fresh Strawberries” – Franz Ferdinand
This 2014 song with an indie beat signifies the search of fresh strawberries to the search for an answer to anything and everything in life.
44. “Cookie Jar” – Gym Class Heroes
The 2008 tune refers to the cookie jar as a woman’s private parts, a colloquial phrase used to date. The artist states how addicted he is to intercourse, stating that he can’t keep his hands out of the cookie jar.
Next: Best songs about heroes and superheroes
45. “Watermelon Man” – Herbie Hancock
This 1962 song had several renditions done years after its release. It is about an actual watermelon man. It was influenced by a childhood recollection of a watermelon vendor whose car rumbled noisily along the cobblestone streets of his Chicago hometown in the 1940s.
Next: The meaning behind Harry Styles’ song “Watermelon Sugar”
46. “Candy” – LL Cool J
The 1997 song talks about life as a teenager and the ups and downs of it. Candy was a great comforter in those harsh moments that he faced then.
47. “Soup” – Blind Melon
This 1994 song is about a man who took his life after struggling with substance addiction.
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Liam Flynn( Head Editor & Writer )
As the Head Editor and Writer at Music Grotto, Liam helps write and edit content produced from professional music/media journalists and other contributing writers. He works closely with journalists and other staff to format and publish music content for the Music Grotto website. Liam is also the founding member of Music Grotto and is passionate in disseminating editorial content to its readers.
Liam’s lifelong love for music makes his role at Music Grotto such a rewarding one. He loves researching, writing and editing music content for Music Grotto.
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